“The Video Essay”: FILMADRID’s new section in collaboration with MUBI

FILMADRID is delighted to announce the creation of a new section for its 3rd edition dedicated to Video Essay. This section will be organised in collaboration with the prestigious global film website and curated video-on-demand platform MUBI

Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the Video Essay, a relatively recent form that already has its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. Authors such as Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López, Kevin B. Lee and kogonada, among many others, established some of the codes of this rich and heterogeneous discipline. The limits of the Video Essay are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this section both MUBI and FILMADRID will offer the platform and visibility the Video Essay deserves.

This will be a non-competitive section. The selected works will be shown during the dates of FILMADRID (8th till 17th of June 2017) as individual posts on MUBI’s cinema publication, the Notebook. Also there will be a free public screening of the selected works during the festival. The selection will be made by the programmers of MUBI and FILMADRID.

Submissions are now open for this section. The deadline is April 20th, 2017. All film submissions must include the Official Entry attached at the beginning of this page.

Registration to participate is open for Video Essays that have never been exhibited online or in theatres. There is not extension limit per work. All works should be in English language or have subtitles in English. Authors can include a text to accompany their Video Essay. All works may be submitted to programacion@filmadrid.com indicating “Video Essay” as subject.

“We’re thrilled about this new initiative,” says Daniel Kasman, Director of Content at MUBI. “It has long been our mission to not only support the best of film, but to encourage inventive criticism and commentary on the world of cinema. By combining the festival experience with a critical one, FILMADRID’s new section will powerfully underscore the inseparability of great art and great discourse. We are tremendously pleased this partnership will help expand FILMADRID’s audience to a global scale.”

Both Nuria Cubas and Fernando Vílchez, directors of FILMADRID, declared their enthusiasm about the new section: “The Video Essay is a form that we really love and find extremely exciting and necessary. We have notice that every year Video Essays are growing in number and quality. There are so many interesting people making amazing works but at the same time have problems to find festivals and platforms to show what they have done. That’s why we have created the section in collaboration with MUBI, the film website we admire the most. It’s a huge honour for our festival to start this adventure with them”.